Thursday, February 22, 2007

Lord of the (Time) Flies

After yesterday, I couldn’t wait to pull proctor duty today. I just knew that it would be much busier than hallway duty. I got to bellow a, “listen up” and throw in some “shushes”, as I patrolled the testers. Time seemed to just fly by. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the fact that the kids had finished in forty minutes. Since three hours were scheduled, this presented a problem.

Needless to say, this scared the crap out of me. The last thing I need is for the kiddos to have extended free time. Two hours is just enough time for these kids to fight over a conch, hunt some pigs and kill a fat kid for his glasses.

I did my best at first. For the first twenty minutes I put a pencil in a sleeping kid’s hand and claimed that a test was still out. After that I was stuck. I had a video on Oliver Wendell Holmes, but what good would that have done? That’s a sure fire way to make a hour seem like two for a teenager, and that’s the last thing I wanted. In an act of desperation I let them draw on the white board. Their reaction was amazing. They took turns, complimented each other on their work, and best of all, they didn’t set anything on fire.

Note to self, get some of those children’s placemats and crayons for my desks.